


A Fool Like Him

by shipambrosia_bree



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization, Post Grand Magic Games, Sting in the fallout of becoming guild master, Sting perspective, Sting-centric, StingYu, mildly angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 01:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15619329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipambrosia_bree/pseuds/shipambrosia_bree
Summary: Sabertooth had to change. Sting had to change first.





	A Fool Like Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SweetMemories1998](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetMemories1998/gifts).



> @Sweetmemories1998 told me that yesterday was a sort of unofficial Stingyu Day, and I absolutely love Sting x Yukino so I had to write something!! Unfortunately that something turned very angsty. Just can't write fluff right now i guess lmao

_Sabertooth, one week after the Grand Magic Games_

 

   Word had spread quickly after the final day of the games, after the dragon invasion had been stopped, of the changes that came to the former Number 1 magic guild in Fiore. The original master, Jiemma, and his daughter Minerva had disappeared in the chaos brewing just before the fight broke out. Even before that, Jiemma had been removed from his position as master. But with his removal, the members of Sabertooth collectively realized that the guild they were fighting for and the guild that they were a part of were two different guilds entirely. And they had to choose which one they really wanted to take back home with them.

   Sting Eucliffe, out of necessity, had to be the first one to make such a decision. Surely, that was why Minerva had elected to make him the new Sabertooth guild master rather than herself; so that she could slip away from their guild just as easily if it all came crashing down. In that moment at the end of the games, as he stared down the five members of Fairy Tail across the courtyard that he was to face - he remembered being so pissed that Natsu wasn’t there, that he nearly hadn’t listened to a word they said - Sting made that decision. They wouldn’t give up, even though he had the clear advantage. They were all exhausted. Beaten up. He’d only shown his face once during the entire match, to knock Quatro Cerberus’s ace out of the competition. Fairy Tail believed in the strength of the bonds between their members. Natsu had told him earlier in the games that such bonds were the source of his power, the fuel for the Fire Dragon Slayer’s flames. His love for Lector, for Rogue and Frosch, reminded him of just how much he loved Sabertooth, and that he needed to fight for a Sabertooth that loved it’s members. That was why he surrendered to Fairy Tail that day. That was why the Sabertooth he brought home with him became more relaxed, breathed more life. That was why, he told himself, he was so obsessed with Yukino’s return.

   Sting let out a sigh as he sat at his desk, filing out more paperwork. He allowed himself to lay his chin in his hands, his eyelids drooping as he allowed himself a moment to rest. Maybe Rogue was right, maybe he had been overworking himself… but it was all to show the other guilds and the Magic Council that even if he was the youngest master of a magic guild since Fairy Tail’s founder, Mavis Vermillion, he took his job seriously. He also was definitely trying to avoid thinking about someone.

   He doubted he could ever get through a day successfully completing that goal though, as the image of Yukino standing before the entire guild, exposed in just her tank top and skirt as Jiemma excommunicated her and forced her to remove her own guild mark, was burned into the back of his eyelids. He had been so furious with her for losing that he couldn’t even stand to look at her. Sabertooth mages didn’t  _lose_. That just wasn’t possible. But as the week of the games wore on, Sting’s anger directed more toward himself. He hadn’t know Yukino well - no one in the guild was particularly close, save for him and Rogue - but she had been a calm presence, a friendly face in an otherwise chilly crowd. He hated that he had missed her, that he disagreed with Jiemma’s decision. He hated how cruel he felt in the way she had been forced out of Sabertooth. He hated how Natsu broke into Sabertooth and nearly defeated their guild master over a girl he had known for two days, while Sting had known her for a year and still couldn’t bring himself to stand up for her.

   And when he saw her for the first time again standing in front of the Eclipse Gate with Lucy as seven dragons stepped out of it, Sting knew he couldn’t ever let Yukino leave. He couldn’t ever bring the original Sabertooth back, because he cared too much. He wanted to grab Yukino, Rogue, Lector, and Frosch and hold them close and protect them from the hell descending upon Crocus. He wanted to know his friends were safe.

   A knock on his door shook Sting out of his thoughts, and he quickly sat up in his chair. “Come in,” he called to them, and then sucked in a breath when an angel glided across the floor toward him.

 

_He’d had a similar reaction back at the Grand Ball. After the dragons had been “defeated” - technically all the credit goes to Natsu for that, since he destroyed the Eclipse Gate - the king of Fiore invited them all to a party. He’d dressed up, and made everyone who was choosing to stay in his new Sabertooth come as a means of announcing his formal takeover as guild master. Initially, he’d seen Lisanna Strauss walking by him while he spoke to Gajeel and done a double-take, but his heart sunk. Until he noticed her walking toward Lucy and two more girls with white hair. Lisanna had an elder sister, but only one. When the girl with the white hair in a ponytail turned, he saw that it was her, Mirajane. The other girl had white hair, only a few inches longer than Lisanna’s. The rose decoration in her hair gave her away, and his heart started to pound wildly. As the group walked toward where the boys stood, Yukino saw him. The look on her face was horror and guilt. She muttered out an apology and turned around._

_Sting was star struck. He knew Yukino was pretty, but he’d be lying if he said she wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the room now. Seeing her all dressed up forced him to face the facts. It was like an arrow straight through his heart. His own idiocy almost let her slip away from him._

_Did she hate him? Probably yes. Still, he gathered himself enough to quickly excuse himself from Gajeel and Rogue and walk forward after her. Lucy and Mirajane noticed him immediately, and he couldn’t blame them for the way their expressions grew concerned._

_“Yukino, wait!” Her entire body stiffened when he spoke her name._

_“I didn’t actually think you would be here,” he explained quickly. Sting felt like his voice quivered quite obviously. He took another deep breath._

_“Master and Minerva have disappeared,” he began. “So we all want to start over. We’re going to remake a new Sabertooth, rebuild it from the ground up.”_

_He saw her turn around and face him. It gave him the confidence he needed to keep talking._

_“We um… we were unbelievably cruel to you,” he looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time in what felt like forever. She shrunk back against his blazing gaze. “But it’s my goal to lead a guild that treasures its members.”_

_“Why are you telling me this?”_

_“Because I want you to come back to us.”_

 

   The words echoed in his ears as he felt a very similar sensation to the moment she turned around at the ball pulse through his veins. Yukino wore her normal attire, a short strapless dress covered in an ornate cape, but it wasn’t the clothes that made him focus in on her beauty this time. It was the realization he’d had, the reason he tried to keep her off his mind as much as he could. Sting clenched his fists a bit to force himself back to reality.

   “Good morning Yukino,” he said finally.

   “Master Sting, I-” she immediately grew quiet as his expression darkened and he held up a hand.

   “Just Sting,” he insisted for the hundredth time since they’d gotten back from the games. Yukino’s habit of adding “Master” to his name now had a way of reminding him of Jiemma - something that left a bad taste in his mouth as it also made Yukino feel more distant from him than ever before. “What can I do for you?”

   “I’m truly grateful to be back in Sabertooth, I love this guild so much,” she immediately began tearing up. “But I still… I don’t think I belong… I shouldn’t have come back-”

   Sting got to his feet immediately as the walls crumbled around him. “Who’s made you feel that way? Yukino?!” He exclaimed when she didn’t answer his first question. “Yukino, I’m serious who is it that makes you think you don’t belong, because I-”

   He had made his way around his desk and toward her, and was suddenly cut off by the weight that pushed against him, bumping him back against the desk. Yukino wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her face against his chest.

   “No one,” she spoke finally. “No one has made me feel that way. Everyone is trying to finally get to know each other and it’s wonderful it’s just I… I keep going back to that night. When no one did anything. When i couldn’t have even been given the decency of having my guild mark removed in an official way. When Master Jiemma made me remove it myself. I was all alone. I don’t want to be alone again.”

   His tongue had gone numb, Sting moving his jaw a moment but no sound came out. He had to say  _something_. He was extremely afraid of the possibility that Yukino Aguria could walk away from Sabertooth right now if he didn’t consider the right things to say. Rogue had told him he needed to be comforting. He needed to have confidence that he could put any of his members’ fears to rest. On the inside, he trembled just as much as Yukino was in his arms.

   “You won’t be,” he replied finally, and she looked up to face him. Damn him if the sight of her in tears didn’t make him want to move heaven and hell just to see her smile. “Nothing like that will ever happen again because this is  _my_ Sabertooth, not Jiemma’s. I won’t lie. It’s going to be a difficult transition, Yukino. It’s going to be painful and it’s going to be long. But I’ve changed. I was just like the wizards Jiemma wanted; cold, arrogant, pure power. I want to be warm. I want to be friends with my guildmates, and I want friendship to mean more to me than raw strength. So I need to make Sabertooth be a guild filled with all those things.”

   They stood there in silence for a long time, the only sound Sting could hear was the pounding of the blood in his ears.

   It felt like an eternity before Yukino finally replied. A simple “Thank you, Sting.” But it was more than enough for him. She paused before speaking again.

   “I promise I’ll help you make Sabertooth just as you envision it,” she breathed out, as though she were thinking over every word. “Even if we’re the last members left here, i will help you and Rogue complete your new Sabertooth.”

   His cheeks felt warm, and Sting couldn’t believe he was blushing. He was blushing, damn it. What kind of control did this girl have over him? And more importantly, why had it taken him so long to realize just what she meant to him?

   “Although… we still haven’t placed your guild mark back on, have we?” Sting asked her. “I’ll… I’ll do it, if it’s okay? Reverse the treatment that Jiemma gave you, and have the guild master place it back on.”

   He watched as Yukino’s face turned the same shade of red as Titania Erza’s hair. Sting mulled over his words in a panic, trying to discover what mistake he had clearly made.

   “Th-that’s very kind of you, Sting…” she stuttered. “But I… I’m wearing a dress. Perhaps I could go home and change? And come back? And then you could place my guild mark?” Her voice got higher and high in pitch with every question.

   As her words revealed what he had implied, Sting blushed a brighter shade of red too. “Of course! Of course you can go home and change! I wasn’t… I mean it wasn’t my intention, I-”

   As he tripped over his words, she smiled. And he watched, as if in slow motion, her face relaxed. Yukino leaned forward. Something pressed to his cheek, and then she stepped back into his line of vision, a softer pink on her face now. Sting’s insides turned to goo.

   “Thank you,” her eyes were finally glittering with joy again, the way they used to when she would speak to him. “Thank you so much, Sting.”

   As she left his office, he couldn’t help but think back to his standoff with Kagura just moments after he’d asked Yukino to come back to Sabertooth. Even though Kagura was drunk, she had incited very real fear in him. Lucy and Erza, too, when they insisted it was only natural for Yukino to join Fairy Tail. The other guilds wanted to fight for her, but Sting had sensed real competition with Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel. He was so afraid of losing Yukino in that moment. For losing any chance he could have had to act on the feelings he had only recently discovered in himself.

   It had taken him too long, the naive fool that he was. Only now he realized he was selfish in his hope of having a chance with Yukino. How could she ever feel the same after everything he had let happen to her?

   The last thing she needed was a fool like him to love her.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my tumblr, @ship-ambrosia. Follow me there to yell about Fairy Tail and the various other fandoms I'm in. Always looking for people to yell my love back at.


End file.
